Tom Powell
SPANISH priest Miguel Pajares has just become the first person to be flown to Europe with the ebola virus.
The 75-year-old was flown from Liberia to air force base Torrejon de Ardoz at 9:30 today, then immediately brought to Carlos III hospital, Madrid, by a convoy with medics wearing protective suits.
Pajares had been treating ebola patients at a Catholic hospital that his humanitarian group runs and had been placed in quarantine on Saturday.
Juliana Bohi, a nun who had been working alongside him, tested negative for ebola but was quarantined with him and also travelled to Spain.
Pajares was reported in a stable condition on arrival in Spain though local news claimed that he was on a drip and could no longer walk unaided.
Neither he nor Bohi are bleeding, the most dramatic symptom of advanced ebola.
While much of Europe has quietly voiced concern over bringing an infected patient tothe region , Mercedes Vinuesa, general of public health in Spain, guaranteed a “minimum risk.”
But with 1,711 cases and 932 deaths across Guinea, Liberia, Nigeria and Sierra Leone, the disease is spreading as the world looks on.
Before being transferred, Pajares announced that he and other ebola sufferers had been abandoned.
“We want to go to Spain and be treated like people.”
The brink of an outbreak and possible death of millions of europeans is in the hands of the spanish………anyone else worried??!!??
I live in Madrid , and I’m not.
But, this outbreak of Ebola is a serious thing.
In that case fab, we’re all doomed